Shippy stung by rampant Thistle.
Once again, the Shipyard suffered a heavy defeat as Lothian Thistle HV won by seven goals to nil at Recreation Park on Saturday. The only consolation, if you could call it one, would be that Lothian can beat most teams in the East of Scotland League by this type of margin. Understandably, when you are at the bottom of the league not many decisions seem to go your way and when the opposition are awarded three penalty kicks, one of them with barely a minute on the clock, you are up against it to say the least. To further rub salt into the wounds it was an extremely harsh decision to give that early spot kick as the ball clearly bounced up and hit the man rather than the player deliberately handling the ball.
The visitors converted the early penalty award and before the Shippy had time to regroup they were 2-0 down when the ball was headed home at the back post. The third goal arrived just short of the half hour mark when the ball was drilled home from the edge of the box. Sean Cusick should have pulled one back for the Shipyard a minute later but he failed to get his shot away as he bore down on keeper Kevin Swain. Lothian got their fourth courtesy of another harsh penalty award and they made it five shortly before half-time.
The Shipyard were able to stem the flow of goals somewhat in the second half with some resolute defending, with a highlight being Cammy Lambie’s save from yet another penalty awarded to the visitors, however, Lothian did manage another two goals, one either side of the missed penalty to round off the scoring and remain hot on the heels of Leith at the top of the league.
The Shipyard travel to Coldstream on Saturday 29th April for their final away match of the season. The kick off at Home Park is 2.30pm.
Burntisland Shipyard: C. Lambie, C. Allison, K. Ford, S. Wilson, M. Black, G. Bowers, D. Hyslop, C. Drury, S. Cusick (D. Taylor), S. Stark (D. Ginc), S. Powrie (R. Calder).
Lothian Thistle HV: K. Swain, J. Sherlock, S. MacKenzie, P. Crawford, G. Munro, A. Muir, W. Hare, K. Brown, S. Wringe, J. Devlin, L. O’Donnell. Subs: R. Hutchison, J. Guy, J. Mungall, B. Alastuey, D. Moore.
Referee: A. Hogg.